Shannon is having sleepless nights, is short with her kids, and has even scared herself from time to time as thoughts of suicide have floated across the landscape of her mind. As a minister in a respectable denomination, she realizes that the words of grace and pardon she proclaims week after week don’t seem to…
Category: Counseling
Combining theological counseling and social work for hospice care
When I first started my chaplain training, I treated social workers as rivals. They seemed never to understand exactly how chaplains served patients and their families. The fact that I did not understand the role of social workers didn’t help much, either. Perhaps this animosity came from the fact that our roles seemed so similar….
When Relationships Harm: How the Church Can Help
Intimate partner violence (also called “domestic violence” or “relationship violence”) is a subject about which many of us in the church know very little. Even if we do know something about it, we often feel uncomfortable discussing it. That may be because we believe that it doesn’t happen to people we know. Unfortunately, that simply…